FTC Chairman Announces Staff Changes in Bureau of Competition

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras today announced two major staff changes within the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. First, Jeffrey Schmidt, formerly a partner of the Washington office of Pillsbury Winthrop LLP, will bring his antitrust expertise to the Commission as Deputy Director of the Bureau of Competition. Second, Jeffrey Brennan, most recently Assistant Director in charge of the Health Care Services and Products Division, has been promoted to Associate Director.

Jeffrey Schmidt

Schmidt began his career at Pillsbury Winthrop in 1979. He was an associate, partner, and a managing partner of the Washington office, and has extensive experience in antitrust litigation and intellectual property issues. In 2001, Schmidt left Pillsbury to serve as Chief Legal Officer and Secretary of Transora, an electronic marketplace formed by leading consumer packaged goods manufacturers. In 2002, he became Chief Administrative Officer, before returning to Pillsbury in 2003.

Schmidt also has served as counsel to several industry consortia, including groups formed in the grocery, pharmaceutical, computer software, electronics, and radio frequency identification (RFID) industries. He served as outside general counsel to the Nanotechnology Policy Foundation and the Nanotechnology Network.

As Deputy Director, he will assist the Director in leading all aspects of Bureau operations, including overseeing merger and non-merger investigations, preparing enforcement recommendations for the Commission, and managing matters in litigation.

Schmidt holds a law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law, and received a B.A. degree with honors from the University of California at Berkeley. A member of the District of Columbia Bar, the State Bar of California, the American Bar Association, and the Federalist Society,

he previously served as an Attorney Advisor to FTC Commissioner Terry Calvani from 1985 to 1987.

Jeffrey Brennan

In his new position as Associate Director, Brennan will help manage Bureau cases, including regional office and health care matters, and will provide leadership on special projects, reporting directly to the Bureau Director. Among his initial responsibilities will be to chair a task force to develop a commentary on the horizontal merger guidelines.

During his time in the Bureau’s Health Care Division, Brennan and his staff helped the FTC make strides in preventing unfair conduct in the health care marketplace. From challenging barriers erected by pharmaceutical companies limiting the availability of generic drugs to dismantling price-fixing arrangements among physician and hospital organizations, his work helped the Commission protect consumers’ right to choose from a wide range of high-quality, fairly-priced health care services and products.

Brennan began his FTC career in 1985 as an attorney in the Bureau of Competition. In June 1990, he left the FTC for private practice – first to Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin as an antitrust associate and then, in 1994, to Collier, Shannon, Rill & Scott, where he became a partner. In April 2000, he joined Howrey, Simon, Arnold & White LLP as a partner. He practiced at that firm’s Antitrust Practice Group until July 2001, when he re-joined the Commission as Assistant Director of the Bureau.

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